Comments on: Google Hotpot Being Subsumed Into Places

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 20:55:58 +0000

Sean , you are right ,,, good point

By: Is Group Texting Google’s Next Social Circle? | Understanding Google Maps & Local Search

Tue, 03 May 2011 12:32:44 +0000

[...] might stay as an independent development unit but ultimately the functionality of disco.com, like Hotpot, offers too much long term value to not bring it back into the corporate fold [...]

By: Google Still Advertising HotPot | Understanding Google Maps & Local Search

Sat, 16 Apr 2011 15:12:37 +0000

[...] Hotpot was discontinued as a distinct product line last week. It was merged into Places and the Hotpot brand was summarily [...]

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:08:12 +0000

@Sean
Great points about the branding (and my inappropriate usage… my 7th grade English teacher is turning in her grave).

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:05:48 +0000

Lior

Thanks for your response…. hate to be a niggler but I asked three questions

By: Lior Ron

Lior Ron — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 05:19:39 +0000

@mike – yes and yes

By: Sean Daily

Sean Daily — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 04:39:43 +0000

Google in my opinion seems to be having some product naming/branding issues of late. They roll out a brand, then they remove or collapse it into something else before the general public is really even entirely aware it exists. This reflects more a lack of brand strategy than it does marketplace reaction. Google needs to treat product brands with the same investment and long-term strategy that a company like Apple does, otherwise, they’re less likely to have those products taken as serious long-term commitments. Wave (bye-bye)…. Hotpot (toast)… it’s getting kind of annoying to try and keep up or even care about the names they come up with for these technologies.

P.S. Minor typo quibble “loose the brand” instead of “lose” above. Otherwise, great article.

By: Google Latitude Adds Checkin Offers Nationwide | Understanding Google Maps & Local Search

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 16:25:51 +0000

[...] was a busy day for Google local. Google management changes in Local & the Hotpot rebranding made front page news around the web. An announcement that snuck through the cracks was the limited [...]

By: Linda Buquet

Linda Buquet — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 22:38:00 +0000

Well one piece of good news. Looks like now that HotPot has merged into it’s rightful “Place” at the core of Google’s local offering, Google Places now ranks enough to have it’s own Google Blog.

http://places.blogspot.com/

Unless it was there before and I missed it. But it looks to me like most previous posts were about HotPot and maps, so I think the HotPot blog was renamed to the Google Places blog or something??? Is that right?

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 20:27:12 +0000

@Earl

Like all things Google, they are attempting to handle it by algo with mixed results. Many reviews and patterns of reviews that appear spammy to a human are not being caught. And in that good reviews are being taken down. It is a work in progress as far as I can tell and one that still needs a great deal of refinement.